Thread-polishing- machine



IIPETERS, PMOTOMYHOGRAPHER. WASHINGTON. D C,

Unire i" AIENT OFFICE.

LAVSON C. IVES, OF HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

THREAD-POLISI-IING MACHINE.

To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, LAWSON C. Ivns, of the city of Hartford, in the State of Connecticut, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Machinery for Sizing and Polishing Spool-Thread, rIwine, and Articles of a Similar Character; and I do hereby declare that the same are fully, clearly, and exact-ly set forth in the following description and the drawings making part thereof.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a longitudinal section through the machine on the line X X of Fig. 2. F ig. 2 is a plan or top view of the machine. Fig. 3 is a section through the polishing cylinder and the axis thereof.

My improvements relate solely to the polishing cylinder, but I will proceed to describe it as applied in an organized machine.

My improvement in the polishing cylinder consists in composing its act-ing surface of a combination of metallic or glass surfaces with bristles or proper equivalent material for making brushes.

My second improvement'consists in combining with a polishing surface such as is described a heating apparatus which heats up the bristles and t-he metallic surfaces, or either of them.

The whole machine, which is in many respects similar to other and prior machines, is supported by a strong frame a a a near the forward end of which is secureda size vat Z2 the rear end of which is considerably prolonged so as to catch the surplus size squeezed off by the nippers.

In the size vat and near its bottom a small bar or roller under which the thread passes is secured; and behind the deep parts of the vat and directly over the dripping ledge are mounted in a suitable frame two pair of nippers C C. These nippers are stocks carrying acting edges of felts as plainly shown in the drawings, and the upper stocks are free to vibrate upon their shafts and are forced toward the lower aws of the nippers, so as to grasp and squeeze the thread by weights C3 C3 which are attached to small rods projecting from the nipper shafts. In advance of these nippers lies a glass or metal rod (Z fixed fast in the standards that support the nipper shaft-s, and another nipper jaw cZ mounted on long arms pivoted at c Z2, is so arranged as to compress thread between itself and the rod CZ; the weights of the arms and the stock supplying sufficient force for the purpose.

Next behind the nippers lies a coil of heating pipes e e e properly connected to some source of supply of steam or hot air, and in the rear of these again are two standards f f slotted as shown in the drawings. In these slots lies a rod g which may be supported at any desired height by means of pins as shown in the drawings.

Next in order comes the rotating polisher which will be hereafter described and then follow two other standards f 7" and a rod g in all respects like those before described. At the rear end of the frame are two takeoff rollers, the lower 7L moved by a belt or in other convenient way and the upper resting upon the lower or the thread between the two and driven by friction only. This upper roller z is free to rise and fall.

The revolving polisher has been devised by me with a view of combining the action of brushes and smooth metallic, or if I may so express it ironing surfaces, each acting alternately and in rapid succession upon the thread, whereby the thread will be polished more rapidly and with a better gloss than by any polisher that I know of, and with a further view of heating'the metallic or glass surfaces, and also of keeping the brushes comparatively dry and warm, and the precise construction may be much varied and these effects still produced.

The plan of construction which I prefer is shown in the drawings- A strong shaft is first procured like 7c, hollow at the ends, and provided with anges attached thereto steam tight, so as to constitute a drum at each end of the shaft just inside of the journals. The peripheries of these drums are to be tapped or bored out and into the holes are to be set and secured pipes such as Z, Z, Z. These pipes are in the form of staples and they form a connection between the two drums in such way that steam can enter at one end of the shaft, pass with steam and consequently heating them. The two inner flanges may be continued outwardly as shown in the drawings and upon their outer edges are to be secured brush, stocks or lugs such as m m m carrying brushes or bristles n n a the arrangement being such that the brushes alternate with the glass or metallic polishing surfaces. These brush stocks or lugs should be secured by screws in such way that as the bristles wear offthe stocks may be moved outward from the shaft. l y

Where heat is not to be employed plain rods of iron or other metal or glass may be secured in any convenient way so as to alternate with the brushes of an ordinary rotating polishing brush, and even when heat is used to heat up the polishing surfaces and the brushes and partially or wholly dry the latter, it may be applied in other ways than that specially described so long as it is in such close proximity to the brushes and the polishing rods as to act on both eflieiently; for instance, a set of steam pipes might underlie both the rods and the brushes or Veither of them and produce the same effect as is produced by making the surfaces themselves hollow and lilling them with steam or heatedair. I prefer however to make the polishing rods hollow and pass the heating agent through them.

In the use of the machine the brush is to be put in rapid revolution, and the lower roller z, is to be revolved as fast as may be required to draw the thread through; the size vat is to be filled with size, and the thread is to be supplied at the forward end and delivered at the hinder end of the machine, following the course shown by the red lines. The rods g and g are to be adjusted to such heights as may be required to cause sufficient contact of the thread with the polishing cylinder,i and steam of such pressure as the precise kind of thread and sizing composition may demand is to be admitted to the heating coil and to the revolving polishing` surfaces. The thread will be sized in the vats, have the surplus squeezed ofll by the nippers, will be partially dried by the coils, and polished and finally dried by the polishing cylinder being at last delivered from the machine by the rollers.

Now I wish ity distinctly understood that I know that rotating brushes for polishing thread are old devices, and also that rotating polishing or ironing surfaces have been used for the same purpose.

I do not know that brushes rotating and used as polishers have ever been combined with a contrivance for heating and drying them as fast as they are moistened and cooled by the thread.

I therefore claim as of my own inventionl. A rotating polishing surface composed of alternate brushes and rods substantially as herein described, and this I claim also when an apparatus for heating either the rods or the brushes or both of them substantially such as specified is combined with such a polishing surface.

2. A rotating polishing brush in combination with apparatus substantially such as is specified for drying and heating the brushes and in combination with a size vat.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name in the city of New York on this 9th day of March 1860.

LAWSON C. IVES. 

